‘Zombie Invasion’ training planned for troops on Halloween

First it was the Center for Disease Control’s campaign for zombie preparedness. Then the Department of Homeland Security got in on the action, warning of a coming zombie apocalypse as a way to get the public planning for emergencies.

Now, the AP reports, a defense contractor in California has a counter-terrorism exercise in the works that will pit Navy special operators, Marines, soldiers, and civilian emergency responders against the un-dead enemies–conveniently timed to take place on Halloween.

Executed by the security firm Halo Corp., the zombie event is billed as a serious training exercise that uses fictional monsters as a way to practice speedy response to the kind of “asymmetrical warfare” that has been the standard in the wars in Iraq in Afghanistan.

According to the AP:

In the scenario, a VIP and his personal detail are trapped in a village, surrounded by zombies when a bomb explodes. The VIP is wounded and his team must move through the town while dodging bullets and shooting back at the invading zombies. At one point, some members of the team are bit by zombies and must be taken to a field medical facility for decontamination and treatment.

“No one knows what the zombies will do in our scenario, but quite frankly no one knows what a terrorist will do,” Barker said. “If a law enforcement officer sees a zombie and says, ‘Freeze, get your hands in the air!’ What’s the zombie going to do? He’s going to moan at you. If someone on PCP or some other psychotic drug is told that, the truth is he’s not going to react to you.”

A spokesman at the Project on Government Oversight said in the story that the watchdog organization doesn’t find this exercise to be a waste of defense and government resources, because the scenarios taking place are all similar to things that could happen in real life.

Here at HE, we just wonder if the ongoing meme of government zombie jokes isn’t getting to be just a bit of overkill.